Throwback Thursday: Jack Nicklaus Wins the Masters at 46

Each week, VICE Sports takes a look back at an important event from this week in sports history for Throwback Thursday, or #TBT for all you cool kids. You can read previous installments here.

For a moment last Sunday, as 58-year-old German Bernhard Langer teed off at the Masters, the slim hopes for the renaissance of the middle-aged professional golfer remained alive. Langer was on the heels of then-leader Jordan Spieth; Langer, who is 10 years older than Rory McIlroy and Jordan Spieth combined, told the media the day before that "one of the over-50s is going to win a major."

That over-50 winner was obviously not Langer at Augusta in 2016—he collapsed even harder than Spieth did in the final round, shooting a 6-over 79 on Sunday to finish well out of contention. But it did feel like an appropriate storyline in a year when Jack Nicklaus's Sunday charge back at age 46 was the subject of historical commemoration. That achievement took place 30 years ago, on April 13, 1986, and a generation later it remains one of the seminal moments in the history of golf, a continuous selling point for the Masters and the sport as a whole, as well as a source of eternal hope for everyone from Langer to 45-year-old Phil Mickelson (who missed the cut) and the floundering post-40 Tiger Woods (who did not play due to yet another injury).

This is why Nicklaus's victory still stands out: it was the most improbable victory of his career, and it was given to the sort of sentimental mythology that golf is given to embrace. But it also captured the ethos of a sport that appeals to an older audience in the first place.

Nicklaus's son served as his caddy that week; his mom showed up at Augusta for the first time since Nicklaus played there as an amateur in 1959. By then, Nicklaus was largely a forgotten man on tour, hanging on mostly due to nostalgia and ceremony. In his first seven events that year, he hadn't finished any higher than tied for 39th. An Atlanta Journal-Constitution column by Tom McCollister declared that Nicklaus was "gone, done," that "nobody that old wins the Masters." (In keeping with the mythos, a friend of Nicklaus's supposedly cut out that column and put it on his fridge.) There was no reason to believe McCollister was wrong at that point; other than Julius Boros, who won the 1968 PGA Championship, and Old Tom Morris at the 1867 British Open, no one Nicklaus's age or older had ever won a major.

Then again, this was a guy who had won five Masters previously, who finished in the top 10 every year in the 1970s, who had finished tied for sixth at Augusta National the year before. He began the day on Sunday four shots back; perhaps the most famous piece of lore from that weekend is Nicklaus's son, Jackie, asking his dad what it would take to win that morning.

"Sixty-six will tie, and 65 will win," Nicklaus said.

Nicklaus was five back at the turn, but then he rallied on the back nine. He eagled the 15th hole, and then teed off on the par-3 16th, his son calling out, "Be right," and Nicklaus reportedly picking up his tee without even looking at the trajectory of the shot and saying, "It is." ("The comment he made there was about as cocky a statement as he ever feels he's made," Nicklaus's son recently said. "He said it under his breath—only I could hear it.") That shot landed three feet from the hole, and Nicklaus made birdie.

Meanwhile, the leader, Seve Ballesteros, and challenger Greg Norman were both collapsing. Nicklaus birdied 17 by making an 18-foot putt (and inspiring an all-time Verne Lundquist moment), and then parred 18 to finish at 9-under. He'd shot a final round 65, including 30 on the back nine. Norman came to the 18th tee tied with Nicklaus, but pushed his approach shot and missed a par putt that would have forced a playoff, foreshadowing his great collapse a decade later.

Beyond his personal triumph, this was the moment Nicklaus forever altered the iconography of the sport, while also seemingly opening it up to new possibilities. It is still exceedingly rare for a player over 40 to win a major—it's more common at the British Open, where the links layouts often de-emphasize distance and power—but every time someone presumes that Woods or Phil Mickelson are finished as true contenders at an American major championship, someone will bring up Nicklaus in 1986. The obvious argument is that players like Mickelson and Woods are in far better physical shape than their predecessors were; the argument is that golf has always been a sport given to longevity, and is even more so that way in the modern age. (Of course, if you dig into the numbers, that's not necessarily true. But why let numbers ruin a nice story?)

"No, (the Nicklaus age record) is not safe," Gary Player, who won the Masters in 1978 at age 42, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "In the old days when I started weight training and watching my diet they said Gary Player's a nut, you just can't do that. Now you got people exercising, the ball is going 50 yards farther, the grooves are bigger on clubs, courses are in better condition, guys have travelling gymnasiums with them."

There is a reason these things matter to the cabal that runs Augusta National, and there is a reason these things matter to professional golf as entity: not surprisingly, golf has the oldest viewership of any professional sport. This is why Nicklaus's achievement, at age 46, will live on forever in Masters lore. Because there is a large segment of the audience that strives to face down middle age with the same youthful aplomb that Nicklaus did for nine holes back in 1986. The odds are against it; in the end, we all grow old. But sometimes a little bit of hope is just enough to feel otherwise.